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Meanings of “God” in some scriptures
#11
RE: Meanings of “God” in some scriptures
(July 4, 2018 at 3:49 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: That being said, you seem like a very nice person. Smile

Boru

Smile Thank you. That gave me a good laugh. I agree with what you and Rob are saying, and I’m grateful for your comments. I see now that I need to provide some more context, and some parameters. That might take another day or two.

(July 4, 2018 at 3:54 am)purplepurpose Wrote: The most popular phrase in religion is  - "Bend your knees before God or prepare for Judgment day". That's very unique type of madness.

Smile I don’t see how that relates to my topic, but thanks for sharing.
- Jim
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#12
RE: Meanings of “God” in some scriptures
I like you too. You seem genuinely interested in what we have to say.
Feel free to send me a private message.
Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.

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#13
RE: Meanings of “God” in some scriptures
(July 4, 2018 at 4:10 am)robvalue Wrote: I like you too. You seem genuinely interested in what we have to say.

Agreed.  Nice to have a theist on the boards who doesn't start and end with, 'Atheists are stupid and going to hell'.  Refreshing, that's what it is.

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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#14
RE: Meanings of “God” in some scriptures
Right, we already know that, no need to be reminded Big Grin

As to the question of people trying to find their own meaning in scripture, there's really no parameters anyone can set. Anyone can find anything in it. They may find certain parts happen to correlate with how they view reality, or cause them to think about it in new ways.

Stimulating thinking and finding inspiration, I approve of. Looking for factual information about reality in such a book I would discourage, further than perhaps a little unreliable mundane history.

You're right, we could examine the intentions of many people involved. The authors, the compilers and the "editors" as time passes. God's intentions... sure, to someone who thinks there's something more than just a man-made book to be examined, perhaps they'll find something.
Feel free to send me a private message.
Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.

Index of useful threads and discussions
Index of my best videos
Quickstart guide to the forum
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#15
RE: Meanings of “God” in some scriptures
(July 3, 2018 at 10:39 pm)jimhabegger Wrote: Here’s how I’m thinking of it now: What Christian scriptures and some other scriptures say about God is sometimes about a few of the human characters in the stories (“Manifestations of God” in Baha’i terminology), sometimes about some kind of power and influence that helps people learn to live better lives (“Holy Spirit” more or less in Christian terminology and “divine assistance” more or less in Baha’i terminology), and sometimes as the first creator in considering the world figuratively or metaphorically as being created by someone or something (“God in His Essence” in Baha’i terminology). It looks to me like, in Christian scriptures and some other scriptures, “God” can mean any of those, or any combination of them.

In the Bible the God character's name is Yahweh.  He's the God of the Hebrews and the God of the armies.  So unless you're a Hebrew he should be irrelevant to you, unless you believe in the Jewish fairy tales, which the Bible plainly says that you shouldn't.  

Since there are thousands of gods (which is just a title) please be kind enough to specify which one you're discussing.  Hell, even Paul and Barnabas were called gods.  And since we know the difference between good and evil we are just as smart as the biblical Yahweh is on that.  So even if he was real the only thing he can do is either toss you into the lake of fire or else lock you up in his golden palace for all of eternity.
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#16
RE: Meanings of “God” in some scriptures
(July 4, 2018 at 4:18 am)robvalue Wrote: As to the question of people trying to find their own meaning in scripture, there's really no parameters anyone can set. Anyone can find anything in it. They may find certain parts happen to correlate with how they view reality, or cause them to think about it in new ways.

Stimulating thinking and finding inspiration, I approve of. Looking for factual information about reality in such a book I would discourage, further than perhaps a little unreliable mundane history.

You're right, we could examine the intentions of many people involved. The authors, the compilers and the "editors" as time passes. God's intentions... sure, to someone who thinks there's something more than just a man-made book to be examined, perhaps they'll find something.

I'm confused now about what I'm trying to do. For some reason I wanted to get comments on my idea. Now I feel like I need to say more about it, for people to have something substantial to comment on. I'll just try saying whatever comes to my mind at random, and see what happens.

This idea is all new to me, and it answers some questions and solves some puzzles that I've wondered about for decades. It looks so simple and obvious to me now that I can't believe it took me 50 years to see it. Of course it isn't going to mean anything to anyone who hasn't been wondering about the same questions and puzzles.

I'll try thinking about this as if I'm talking about a book that no one has ever heard of before. It has a lot of stories in it, and all through them there's some kind of someone or something that it calls "God." Actually there might be more than one of the same kind of someone or something, or else there are different names for the same thing. The stories say that he/she/it/they created the universe, but they say in some places that he lived on earth as a human being, which makes him a part of the universe he created?  Huh   Sometimes they also say that there's nothing whatsoever that anyone can ever know about him, but then again they say that his whole purpose in creating the universe is for us to know him and love him.  Sad   "It rained all night the day I left; the weather it was dry. Sun so hot I froze to death; Susannah don't you cry." They also talk about a lot of things he has said and done all through history, and promises and threats about what he's going to do in the future, besides what he did/does/will do/ as a human being. I can't tell how much of the book is fact and how much is fiction, or even how much it's claiming to be fact, but believe it or not, I've actually learned some things from it that have done me a lot of good. It reminds me of the Celestine Prophecy where I learned to get energy without draining it from others, by looking for beauty all around me. That was pure fiction (I think), but I got a lot of good out of it. This book I'm talking about also reminds me of some fiction novels dressed up as true stories without ever saying otherwise, but we know that they're fiction anyway. Or do we?  Smile

Anyway, I've found a possible meaning for the word "God" in this book, that has done a lot to clear up my confusion about what the stories might be trying to say about this god or these gods. It's the simplest, most obvious solution, which I should have seen fifty years ago: it means different things at different times and in different contexts. Sometimes it means one or another of a few of the humans in the stories, and/or all of them together. Sometimes it means that nonexistent -- oops, I mean unknowable first creator of the universe. Sometimes it means some kinds of power and influence besides human ones that, according to the stories, help people live better lives, for their benefit and the benefit of others. Some times it might be some combination of those.
- Jim
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#17
RE: Meanings of “God” in some scriptures
You can read the bible, or any other religious book, and take away only what works for you if you like. We have a lot of theists here like that, often referred to cherry pickers.

Or you can change what it says to fit your needs claiming parable or allegory or something similar. 

If that works for you great but I can tell you it won't work for me. The concept of a god in any religion is a fantasy.
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem.
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#18
RE: Meanings of “God” in some scriptures
Thinking about where to go with this now, I’ve decided to try making it part of my introduction, showing an important part of me and how I think.

As I said in my introduction thread, at the heart and center of my life is continually working to improve my character, my conduct, and the way I live my life, to help make the world better for all people everywhere. I use some religious scriptures to help me do that. My understanding of them is continually evolving from trying to learn from them how to live a better life. This new idea, about what “God” means in the scriptures, is part of that process.
- Jim
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#19
RE: Meanings of “God” in some scriptures
(July 4, 2018 at 5:18 pm)jimhabegger Wrote: This new idea, about what “God” means in the scriptures, is part of that process.


Why do you suppose what "God" means is a question? Does the idea of God arise naturally or is it a cultural hand me down?

Sometimes I've thought it might be because people look out into the vastness of space and try to deduce a purpose. Why is it the way it is, what if anything was intended?

Still other people seem to put more store in God the inner counselor. What is the source of inspiration and insight which just pops into our heads without any deliberate effort or attention?

But my question is, why do people assume that the God they imagine to be the architect of cosmology has anything to do with the God they imagine they commune with inside? Why the merge?

If God really was the architect of every facet of the cosmos, He would truly have to be something supernatural. Or so it would seem from our perspective. But perhaps there is no creator and therefore nothing supernatural. An inner God could be accounted for by entirely natural means. Shouldn't nature be enough?
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#20
RE: Meanings of “God” in some scriptures
You could take it a step farther, OP, and posit that all gods throughout all of time have been anthropomorphic projection. It;s not that the authors of the stories intended them to be so, so much as this state of affairs was inescapable given that the authors were human.
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